


Peach, Purple

by zealousprince



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Marauder Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zealousprince/pseuds/zealousprince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His mother keeps the peach and purple wedding dress on an old sewing mannequin in the study.  In the summer before Remus’ seventh year, she decides to remarry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peach, Purple

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2010 and betaed by the always insightful [Phiso](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Phiso/pseuds/Phiso). Based on a prompt left by yndigot on LJ.

**Peach, Purple**

Remus says, “Sirius wants to come to the wedding.”

From beside, behind, and atop an enormous vase of enormous flowers, Remus’ mother says, “Hm?”

Remus sees this as a chance to take back the words, to smooth the moment over with bland, boyish, infallible charm, but this is not a normal moment and he has given his word. He peeks through the leafy bits near the top of the flowery stalks just as his mother peeks through the other side from atop her stepladder. He repeats, “Sirius wants to come to the wedding.”

This time, Mother raises her eyebrows at him and says, “Does he?” to which Remus can only respond, “Yes.”

After a brief, thinking silence, she pulls away from the flower arrangement and clambers off the stepladder. Remus hops to help her before she can twist her ankle, as she is wont to do.

His mother moves towards the next flower display in the sunny little shop before saying, “Sirius is a...sweet boy, but didn’t you say I should have only family and close friends at the ceremony?”

“I didn’t think you’d want a very big reception.”

“No, I suppose we wouldn’t.”

Remus frowns at “we”, but his mother is closely examining a smaller arrangement and does not see. In the midmorning light, she seems bright and very young, like she does in the photo albums and in the frames on the mantle, and in the faded sepia print he keeps in his trunk at school, taken by her father when she was his age. 

Her husband-to-be, Remus thinks, could never look young like her (like Dad), but he likes him well enough all the same. Sometimes.

A minute passes. The shop is crowded with fronds and flower heads and smells of syrup and sunshine. Remus tries again.

“He’d very much like to come.”

“Hm? Who, darling?”

“Sirius, Mum.”

“Oh, yes. And what about the others? Jamie? Peter?”

Automatically, Remus snorts at “Jamie”, but his heart is not in it. He knows it is a parrying thrust, a diversion. “They don’t–...it’s just Sirius. Only him.”

“Mmm. And why does he so want to come to this old bat’s wedding?”

Remus has no real answer to this, nothing less child-like than “please, Mother” (because he understands me more than the others do), so he keeps his peace. This time, Mother notices, but pretends otherwise. Remus inherited this trait from her.

The skirmish won, she lets herself be distracted momentarily by the elderly shopkeeper, a spry loud-mouthed thing who dresses in ample and colourful robes and flutters about the small shop like a mad butterfly. Remus takes the time to brood. This is a trait of his father’s. Or it was.

Remus misses Father suddenly, in a brief, wrenching, visceral way that he has not felt in some time. He frowns and stares hard at the center of a giant sunflower until the moment passes.

Mother turns to him but he is not quite ready, and her sunny disposition alters suddenly, dramatically.

“Remus, I’m sorry–” she begins, but Remus shakes his head hard and cuts her off, his voice slicing through the tranquil air, “No, Mum. Don’t. It’s fine.”

“No, you’re not,” she says, but insists no further for the time being. And for once, Remus does not call her out on it. This is not about him.

  


=====

Remus begins to feel bad again when he gets an owl from Sirius the next day, bearing a letter comprised of a single, loopy, ecstatic sentence:  _So, can I come?_

The owl is waiting, perched haughtily on his windowsill with a very Black glower in its amber eyes, so Remus has no choice but to bite his lip and write perfunctorily back  _I’m sorry, please wait a bit._

Sirius writes back that evening, the second trip causing his owl, the only remnant of his old life, to look even fiercer than usual.

_Don’t say sorry, idiot. Just ask her._

  


=====

Mother is singing to the wireless the next day at breakfast. Remus joins in once he remembers no one is here watching.

They are swigging orange juice and waltzing together around the kitchen table when Sirius’ owl alights at the open window, looking as dignified as a ruffled, surly, sleep-deprived screech owl can possibly look. It glances balefully at them both and extends its left leg. Slowly, Remus unlaces his fingers from his mother’s and moves to take the letter, but the owl jerks its leg back, clicking its beak once with distaste. Then, it extends its leg towards Mother.

She pauses before crossing the small sunlit kitchen, pauses again as she moves to gingerly untie the letter from the owl’s proffered leg. Remus has taken the hint, and though sceptical and slightly hurt, he retreats back to the table to finish his breakfast.

Mother reads the letter in silence. There is a single line between her eyes.

(What is she reading, and why will Sirius not show it to him? He does not feel like eating anymore.)

After an eternity in which the only sound is the wireless playing something less lively than before, Remus’ mother folds the letter into four and slides it into her pocket. She fishes an owl treat from a dusty countertop jar – Romulus, a delightful thing of an owl, died of old age the winter before and was never replaced – and attempts to offer it to the disgruntled screech owl. The owl resists for a moment, feathers ruffled up in an aristocratic manner quite reminiscent of its previous owners, but relents when the treat in her hand becomes two and allows itself to be pacified by her fingers stroking carefully down its disturbed plumage. Then it flies off to hunt in the overgrown garden – daytime be damned – before setting off for home.

Mother stares after it, looking contemplative and just a little worried. Remus gathers the dishes to wash, and rolls up his sleeves to begin the task.

Celestina Warbeck is crowing through the wireless now, and both Remus and his mother hate her, but neither notices because their thoughts are lost in soap suds and solitary musings. They do this a lot lately, now that there is less to bridge the gap between mother and son.

The sunlight streams peach-coloured through the curtains, soft and gauzy and unsubstantial as a veil. And the upright blades of purple wildflowers sway in the garden, to the beat of a distant military tune.

Finally, as the Warbeck song fades to a characteristic warbling finish, Mother sighs and says in a wistful little girl’s voice, “We wanted ten children. Can you imagine, Remus? Nine little brothers and sisters for you.”

Remus does not look at her. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, whose womb was it? Not your father’s, that’s for certain.”

“Stop it.”

“We just didn’t want you to be alone. Surely...surely, with ten of you...none of you would have to ever be...”

She stops, and her right hand slips into her pocket, where the letter is folded and tucked against her. Remus glances sideways at her and sees the morning light playing across her skin, the morning breeze lifting her hair over her shoulders. He thinks she looks frail and worried and in no shape to be married.

In the garden, the owl screams, and the grasses crash and rustle.

Gently, Remus says, “You would have run out of Greek names for all of them.”

A beat, then Mother tips her chin down and smiles ruefully.

“Oh, darling. Have I taught you nothing?” she parries, and suddenly they are marching forward again, as though grinding to a halt had never occurred, as though faltering had never been possible.

Remus has learned this game by rote, and sees his advantage. He presses, “I’m serious. There are only so many mythical names that can hope to match up well with ‘Lupin’.”

And Mother knows this too, and retaliates, “As always, you are hopelessly unimaginative, my dear. So like John. I’m sure I could find at least ten.”

“I doubt that.”

“A doubter! Why, I’m certain I could find twenty!”

And they laugh, easily, and it is summer again, and not the winter of ’74 (Father was sick and feverish, and the road was dark and icy and hard. He remembers). Mother curls her fingers around the nape of Remus’ neck so that he can feel every callused fingerprint on his sun-warmed skin.

Mother says, “Sirius may come to the wedding. Write and tell him.”

Remus nods, slowly, feeling her nails scratch his nape just slightly. She smiles, and kisses his cheek, and wanders away. Moments later, he can hear her singing upstairs, up in the dusty sunny study where she keeps the peach and purple dress on an old sewing mannequin.

  


=====

Sirius attracts stares at the reception. Some of the family know him on sight; most do not. All are too polite to ask why he, the strange boy-almost-a-man, is there.

Just before luncheon, Mother kisses Remus and hugs him tight, calling him her little boy softly in his ear, so that no one else hears the quiver of desperation that he has been hearing since August, 1967.

(It’s been ten years. Still, she is in pain over this. How to explain to his mother that he is no longer a child? How to say, “Mother, I am no longer afraid”?)

Then she turns and presses a single, precise kiss to Sirius’ cheek. Years of mischief-making and idle, boredom-induced research are given proper use at last, as he has modified a charm of James’ invention, and now foxgloves sprout in the grass wherever she walks. She is delighted by them and skips in the grass like a girl to make them grow just for her, purple flowers for her purple wedding. For this, Sirius gains favour.

(How to say, “Mother, I am going to the war”?)

  


=====

Benevolently, the bride’s new husband beams as he watches her. He is so in love. He believes she will be this way forever, prancing, tiptoeing in tiny purple shoes as his new mother-in-law tries to get her to sit down for luncheon.

He wears a peach necktie and lilac shirt to complement her, to complete her splendid, simple summer wedding. She had asked for these colours, had insisted, gently, with glowing eyes that would not take “no”. So of course, he gave them to her. 

He loves her so. This he believes.

She twirls across the grass still, pulling Remus after her, so that he seems more like the parent while she more the child. Out of the corner of his eye, the groom sees the outsider, strange by virtue of his dark hair and rigid aristocratic posture, wave his wand surreptitiously and murmur a few words.

Remus starts and the bride laughs, elated; there are daisies growing as he treads in the grass. He gives the dark boy a look that is stormy and something else too – the groom cannot describe it although it feels very familiar – but the boy only laughs and shrugs like a scoundrel, in robes too well-cut to be common and with clasps that shine like real gold in the summer sun.

The groom cannot help but smile, too. He loves his bride so much, and he loves Remus too, despite his disability (because of course Remus told him, months ago, as a final act of defiance). He has found his happiness at long last.

His bride saunters farther away across the lawn, her arms spread and trailing her full sleeves like summer-coloured wings, as Remus, exasperated, is left behind. He returns to the patio where the luncheon table has been set up and where the dark-haired boy waits, smiling. The groom is no longer watching him, however; he has eyes only for his wife, and can only sigh and lovingly watch her. Neither of them even notice how the flower charm is wearing off, or how the foxgloves wilt and shrivel, more and more, before they have time to disappear back into the ground.

 

  


=====

That night, the boys sleep outside in the garden, where the overgrown grasses tower above them like javelins glinting silver from the moon.

There is an orange light on, just dimly, at the master bedroom window. Remus is rolled onto his side so that he does not see it, even from the corner of his eye.

Sirius has finished kissing him, and now lies beside him on the grass, one arm under his head. He stares up at the stars while Remus stares at him, or rather at the point where his neck meets his sunburnt shoulder. He wants to kiss him there right now, but fears the burn will only cause him pain.

Sirius says, in a gruff voice trying at maturity, “I should have come sooner.”

“What’s this? The great Sirius Black, feeling guilty?” Remus teases gently, but in this mood Sirius is not having it. His black brows knit together and he growls, almost, before abruptly turning to throw his arm over Remus. The sharp of his elbow lands hard on Remus’ gut, but he lets it go. He places a hand carefully on Sirius’ outstretched arm, and Sirius takes it as his cue to shift closer and press his face against the side of Remus’ neck. They breathe in and breathe out, quiet now as the dry summer grass crackles and settles around them.

From the direction of the house there comes a voice, faintly. Remus thinks it is his mother’s. He wishes he could stop his ears from hearing and his mind from imagining and feels vaguely miserable.

Sirius wriggles against him, aiming for a more comfortable position on their makeshift bed (Sirius’ idea: an extra sheet from the linen closet, folded and placed in the least overgrown and prickly area of the garden) and raises his eyes to Remus’, although Remus looks straight up towards the sky, unmoving.

The voice again, louder this time. It is definitely his mother. Remus bites his lip and tries hard to not think unreasonable, petty, jealous thoughts about his stepfather. She deserves this happiness, she does. Although it is probably a fragile happiness, the kind that he believes only Father could sustain for long, it is something she needs now that Remus just cannot give her and that this man, apparently, however fleetingly, can. 

Remus sighs, seeing out of the edge of his vision Sirius’ arm move up and down to the swell of his chest. Around them, the night is teeming with minute sounds and movements so that their spot, two bodies huddled close together in the sultry warmth, seems like the only still place in the world. 

Pensively, Sirius raises his chin towards Remus’ face. His eyes are very bright in the moonlight, ringed silver-grey like an eclipse.

He says, “They’re making love in there, aren’t they?”

Remus says, “Probably.”

A moment’s reflection, then Sirius says, “We should be too.”

“Making love?”

“Yeah,” says Sirius in a lower, grudging voice, as though admitting to the fact has lessened its dramatic and revelatory impact.

There is a pause, during which their heartbeats quicken and their thoughts scramble (I can’t possibly love him, not really, but perhaps) and then Remus turns and Sirius’ arm shifts over his chest, his hand sliding down to the prominent curve of his spine.

Remus looks him in the eyes for the first time since they lay down here, and in his expression Sirius can see all the things he has been thinking ever since his mother spoke of donning the peach and purple dress for another summer wedding.

Remus says, “All right.”

And they begin, as the harvest moon floats above them, and the grass parts and rustles in the heat.

And when morning comes, she is standing at the bedroom window in the overly large housecoat that was once her husband’s, watching them in the garden as they sleep curled together like children. She smiles sadly, and with resignation and regret, and wishes them happiness.


End file.
